Tolerance cannot be measured in terms of degrees of intolerance. I am essentially opposed to burning books even when they incite others to violence. But freedom is either an absolute or it is conditioned on not inciting others to violence. Anything else is rationalized bigotry.

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Thursday, September 6, 2012

Scandal at London Metropolitan University

Last week, here in the UK, a scandal erupted, like a
volcano, and damage done, it just as quickly subsided. Perhaps this is because
all the interested parties are desperate for the wreckage to be discretely
cleared with as little fuss as possible so that there is no lasting harm to the
environment, in this case the higher educational environment.

London Metropolitan University (LMU) had
its authority to issue student visas to people outside of the European
Community revoked. It means that up to 2,600 students will need to either find
a new university willing to take them or be deported, and they have till
December this year to do it. Unsurprisingly, the University has cried foul
and is suing the customs authority!

Some facts:

The
British university industry was worth £40 billion last year. Let me say
that again. British universities (not colleges, just universities) did
business this last year to the tune of forty thousand million pounds
sterling.

Foreign
students contributed £13 billion last year to the UK economy. They
paid a minimum of £12,000 each, per year, to study here (English students
now pay up to £9,000 per year for the same privilege). But all this is in payment
for an inadequate and substantially devalued education, more about that
later.

It
is a scam which encourages a corrupt education system because the bigger
the number of students, the greater the prestige for the UK
industry as a whole and the higher the salaries that will be demanded by
the professors for their services.

I
object to this arrangement because those that can afford to come here are
under no obligation to demonstrate tolerance towards the natives with whom
they interact nor do they need to leave behind their repugnant prejudices.And their professors will bow down in
worship to anyone who aids them in increasing their prestige and their
power.As a consequence, heightened
anti-Jewish radicalism has not been discouraged by universities that view
the contribution of their client roster to their wallet or purse as infinitely
more important than integrity, or the safety of their fellow citizens.

The
London Metropolitan University
has objected on the grounds that:

a)everyone
was doing it

b)the
rules changed 14 times over 3 years so they couldn’t ‘cope’

c)LMU students spoke 100 separate languages, the standards were never standardised, it is
therefore ‘impossible’ to deliver a test that is accurate for everyone.

First a reminder. This is an Institution of Higher Education. The
state, your taxes and mine provide hundreds of millions of pounds to each
institution because it is understood that they are ALL capable of doing
research and coming up with solutions.

The reality is a little more
complicated.I completed a course at my
wife’s former college and the lecturer used her own slides, they were
grammatically incorrect and some were misspelled. She gave answers to
questions on the test paper because she did not cover the material during the
course.Some 500 colleges have had their
licences to sponsor international students removed (because the new rules made
it too difficult for them to manage the process ‘safely’).

It would appear that the initial premise
of higher education authorities being entrusted with devolved authority to authorise
applications by foreign nationals to study in the UK was based on a logically flawed,
in fact wildly naïve idea that Universities would behave with legal probity, in
contradiction to their own self-interest. In fact all that happened is that the UK Border
Agency was once again scapegoated for what must have been a cynical Foreign
Office ploy.

What is the difference between a college
and a university? In theory a university carries out research while a college
should only teach vocational courses. In practice most colleges offer lots of
courses unconnected to vocational training. The problem becomes focussed
when we realise the slight of hand that government carried out some years ago
when it reclassified some 200 colleges as universities. They did not seek to
demonstrably increase the quality of education provided but for the newly
reclassified universities their revenues sky-rocketed. Today there are 147
‘Universities’ in the UK
(that is the number I was able to find listed via web search).Some of those ‘universities’ are the
amalgamation of former geographically unconnected colleges.

The penultimate audit carried out 6 months
ago stated that London Metropolitan University had not carried out audits of
its own as required: It failed to adequately monitor classroom attendance,
barely knew who it had on its classroom registers, did not monitor the level of
English knowledge its students had and did not check to see if its students
were legally permitted to reside in the UK (many were not). This is incredible
because what it means is that the university took students money but:

Did
not bother to check that students attended classes (one has to assume that
if they were not in receipt of bursaries then they were earning very good
money to make up for their annual fees)

Many
of LMU’s students had so incomplete a knowledge of the English language it
was simply inconceivable that they should be accepted to study a course
taught in the English language.

Britain’s
Universities are the lungs of Islamic radicalisation. Three heads of University
Islamic Societies in London
have been convicted of terrorist offences (one tried to blow up a British
plane). If they are so irresponsible that they accept people they cannot
be bothered to monitor in the way a normal university monitors its ‘real’
students then they become complicit in terrorism and, murder.

Secret files obtained by The Daily
Telegraph and Wiki Leaks early in 2011 disclosed that at least 35 terrorists
held at Guantánamo Bay were indoctrinated by extremists in Britain.

And now London Metropolitan
University is complaining
because it may be forced to repay funds provided for fictitious students.

Six months on from the first Border Agency
Audit Report they found that none of the faults or criticisms cited had been
addressed.Unsurprisingly, they withdrew
their license.

But it gets worse.

A friend’s elder son graduated recently
from a three year degree course in Psychology.He is lucky to have had a steady part time job that (when he completed
his degree) has now become his means of making a living. He works as a
store-man, check-out jockey and general shop assistant at his local supermarket
but he now has a degree to prove he can do it.

His degree cost £8,500 per year excluding
accommodation and living expenses. It started each year at the end of
September, in theory going through to mid July the next year (which would be ok
because after 2 term-breaks, again in theory this is equal to 8 months study). In
practice, excluding term-breaks of over one month, his course ended each year
at the Easter break (end of April) so he effectively paid for a degree course
that lasted at most 6 months. That is English university education!What also has to be factored into the overall
cost of education is that he will have been paying rent for 12 months and not 6
months.

There is a far more serious issue here as
well.

Some 35 years ago a study was commissioned
that revealed some surprising results. 80% of all jobs that were filled by
university graduates could as easily have been done by those who left school at
the end of high-school and did not continue their studies.But the lobby for the commercial sector vigorously
promoted the idea that it was the responsibility of government to prepare the
young for the world of work.Taxation had
already paid for this unquantifiable benefit. Education was simply, not their
problem. Government failed to argue against this proposition but it could not
afford to fund higher education on its own. Hence we created a monster that
grows ever more bloated by the year and with increasing corpulence has come
greater arrogance and a high-minded self-aggrandizement that disfigures the
national economy as it is destroying society.

Those people who want to learn are being
failed by an academic education system that has no ethical responsibility
towards the society that hosts it.

I feel sure that length of semester (term)
and exorbitant pricing of academic study are world-wide phenomena; let us call
it a contagion.Not everyone can be a shelf-filler with a Bachelor
of Arts degree (BA) but this is also a worldwide curse. Similarly, to do a basic secretarial or administrative
job with typing, filing and timetable coordination for the boss requires a BA
whereas 5-10 years ago an 18 year old could have done it blindfolded. They
still could but without a degree they are more likely to now be unemployable.

And that is the tragedy that awaits our
youth today.Too many of them are doomed
to drifting and hopelessness.Democratic
Society has betrayed its contract with its citizens.

This is the urgent problem that society is
desperately in need of addressing.

We should start by dividing education at
aged 14 (or younger) into vocational and scholarly tracks that permit our youth
to decide on going forward into a university path or apprenticeship.The jobs that we may learn via apprenticeship
(and most jobs fall into this category) should be returned to industry. If we
have to, give them tax breaks.

If society is to be saved we need to
approach this subject with brutal honesty, not personal ego and prestige.